The Boxers of Kabul: Women, Boxing and Islam

Abstract

In this chapter, we focus on women who box, in particular Muslim women who box. Within Sport Studies and the Sociology of Sport there is limited discussion of this topic; Mitra (2009) offers one of few accounts. In the literature, there exist broader discussions surrounding women, Islam and sport and/or physical activity (cf. Benn et al., 2011; Hargreaves, 200; Kay, 2006; Walseth and Fasting, 2003), as well as analyses related to the histories of women boxers (Hargreaves, 1997; van Ingen, 2013a), women’s boxing bodies (Halbert, 1997; Mennesson, 2000), boxing uniforms (van Ingen and Kovacs, 2012), boxing and the Olympics (Lindner, 2012) and women boxers in film (Boyle et al., 2006; Caudwell, 2008; Fojas, 2009). Many of these contributions take a feminist perspective to the sport of boxing.